Royal Oak denies law bullies Christians, clouds restroom use

ROYAL OAK — Opponents of the city’s proposed human rights law say it will force schools and business to allow people born as males but identify their gender as female to use women’s restrooms and locker rooms if it is ever enacted.

They also are taking issue with the proposed penalty of $500 a day for any employers, business owners or landlords who might be found guilty of discriminating against someone because of their sexual orientation, gender identity and HIV status.

State Rep. Thomas McMillin, R-Rochester Hills, pointed to a Christian photographer and baker in other states being investigated and fined for refusing their services for gay marriages.

McMillin again is assisting Fred Birchard of Royal Oak in preventing the city from adopting a human rights law.

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“Bullying Christians is wrong, too,” McMillin said.

City Attorney David Gillam acknowledged similar business service-related cases could come about in Royal Oak. However, he refuted the claim that ordinance would bully anyone and he emphasized its intent is to protect everyone.

“It applies to anyone in any group,” Gillam said. “Say for example there’s a bakery run by a gay or lesbian couple and they don’t want to provide a service to a heterosexual person. They couldn’t deny service based on the sexual orientation of a potential customer. Or, if they didn’t want to do a first communion cake, that would be prohibited. The idea is to treat everyone equally.”

The City Commission is expected to decide Monday what to do about Royal Oak’s blocked human rights ordinance. Elected officials passed the local law March 4 but Birchard and McMillin launched a petition drive that stopped it from taking effect.

The commission has three choices: repeal the ordinance, put it up for a citywide vote in a special election, or put it on the ballot of the Nov. 5 general election.

City Commissioner Jim Rasor wants to see the measure go to a citywide vote. He also said McMillin should stick to representing his district in Lansing and quit meddling in Royal Oak.

“There’s no possibility of the ridiculous and inflammatory scenarios which this representative would like to scare voters,” Rasor said in an email to the Daily Tribune.

However, McMillin noted there was a case in New Mexico where a court ordered a photographer to pay $6,600 in attorney fees for refusing to take pictures of a lesbian couple’s commitment ceremony.

An Oregon baker also is being investigated for not taking a cake order for a same-sex wedding.

McMillin describes Royal Oak’s attempt to pass a broad ban against biases not covered by Michigan’s civil rights law as “bizarre and discriminatory.”

He also finds fault with the proposed law’s attempt to protect people whose gender identity is different from their sex at birth from being treated unfairly, particularly when it comes to using public accommodations.

“At the very least the council should have also included a requirement for warning signs on women’s and girl’s public restroom and locker room doors saying that women and girls may be confronted there by men who think they are women,” McMillin said in an email.

Birchard has said the addition of gender identity as a protected category makes Royal Oak’s proposed ordinance “even worse” than one they worked to defeat in 2001.

Rasor said McMillin should have taken a closer look at the human rights ordinance he proposed for Royal Oak.

“He would have noticed that the exceptions we enacted to the ordinance protect religious organizations and schools from the type of doomsday scenario that he is trying to scare Royal Oak voters into thinking would occur,” Rasor said.

Specifically, section 10 of the lying-in-limbo law contains 14 exceptions.

“Under the proposed ordinance, restricting the use of lavatories and locker room facilities on the basis of sex — for example, the same way that the use of lavatories and locker room facilities is restricted now — would not be prohibited,” Gillam said.

In other words, there will continue to be men’s restrooms and women’s restrooms. Physical anatomy — be it from birth or not — will determine the appropriate restroom, Gillam said.

“It will depend on whether someone has physically undergone a sex change or whether they think of themselves as the opposite sex,” he said. “My impression would be the physical hardware dictates which facility you use. If you’re a man and dress as a woman you have no right to use the women’s restroom.”

A lot of transgender individuals aren’t comfortable or don’t feel safe in either setting. Unisex restrooms are a popular alternative.

Last November, students at Oakland University held a “Gender Bender” event to raise awareness about a petition drive calling for unisex restrooms on campus. Supporters said unisex restrooms would benefit not only for transgender students but moms with sons or dads with daughters not old enough to use the appropriate restroom alone.